NSE7 Enterprise Firewall and VDOMs Practice Question
An organization has two FortiGate firewalls in an HA active-passive cluster. They notice that after a failover event, some users cannot access external resources. The administrator checks the HA configuration and finds that failover occurred correctly. What is the most likely cause of the connectivity issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers assume all HA configurations are fully synchronized, but FortiGate explicitly excludes VDOM links from HA sync, requiring manual replication or use of a configuration-only sync method.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
VDOM links are not synchronized
In an HA active-passive cluster, VDOM links are not automatically synchronized between peers. After a failover, the new primary FortiGate may lack the VDOM link configurations required to route traffic between VDOMs, causing connectivity loss for users relying on inter-VDOM routing. This is a common misconfiguration because VDOM links are treated as local objects and must be explicitly replicated or re-created on the peer.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
VDOM links are not synchronized
Why this is correct
If VDOM links are not synchronized, the backup unit may have incorrect link status, causing routing issues.
- ✗
session-pickup is disabled
Why it's wrong here
Disabling session-pickup would drop sessions but not prevent new connections.
- ✗
HA override is enabled
Why it's wrong here
HA override does not affect connectivity; it only controls priority.
- ✗
Gratuitous ARP is disabled
Why it's wrong here
Without gratuitous ARP, the network might not update MAC tables, but users could still connect after ARP timeout.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This NSE7 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Fortinet certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the NSE7 exam.